Arrogant Incident Ruins Good Gig
Remember being really small on the night of Christmas Eve? I used to love it. I’d have spent weeks on end telling my parents exactly what I wanted and would spent the night before Christmas planning ways to divide my time on Christmas Day between my new presents. Inevitably, Christmas Day would come, I’d receive absolutely nothing that I asked for and would spend the day miserable before eventually passing out from lack of sleep. As the years went on, the anticipation and inevitable disappointment was replaced by a searing hangover, recovery drinking, a little bit of disappointment and then passing out due to a combination of all above.
Every Time I Die at ‘The Wedgewood Rooms’ are a combination of all of my Christmas’ rolled in to one.
Before tonight, I’d never seen them before despite being a fan since their ‘Lst Night in Town Days’. I don’t particularly like their new material, but am curious to see if they retain the same energy and flamboyance of their earlier albums. Unfortunately, the support is rather tedious, except for a suspiciously ‘polished live performance’ from Scary Kids, Scaring Kids.
By the time they enter the arena with ‘We’rewolf’ I’m already half cut and looking forward to the upcoming noise onslaught. The energy I had anticipated is evident even if the songs aren’t overly familiar.
And then, the inevitable Christmas dissapointment. An inocuous incident involving a water bottle from the crowd turns into a Salem style witch hunt which eventually ends in an innocent bystander being removed from the venue. Unbelievable. The nerve of a band to make an example of one individual without any proof of the incident is quite shocking, really. Every Time I Die are good, and they’re a lot bigger than they used to be (some (me) would argue to the detriment of their material) but they’re not that big. Shocking Bono style arrogance from Buckley and co there.
“We’ve traveled too far to have our night ruined by some anonymous asshole who wants to throw a beer on stage”. Well, he could very well have travelled up and down the country when you were playing shitty little venues up and down the arse end of England. Get fucked.
Anyway, the whole evening is pretty much ruined for me from that moment. The delivery is fantastic, the material isn’t particularly heavy on the new album and all in all it’s a great gig.
‘Ebolorama’ is obviously the highlight if the night. I couldn’t tell you, though. I was outside smoking cigarettes and talking Amsterdam with Scary Kids, Scaring Kids.